📧 to White "standard is relevance to a claim"

Tracy,

Rule 26(b)(1)’s standard is relevance to a claim or defense — not whether the December 10, 2024 assessment is itself connected to the later restrictions. Two points:

First, to the extent Defendants’ position rests on any security rationale for the access restrictions, OSP’s own threat-assessment process — applied to me seven weeks earlier — concluding there were “no further indicators that the subject is an immediate threat,” is directly probative of pretext under Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391, 399 (2019) (citing Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287 (1977)). The log entry in the Hegney-to-Hanes email (ISAAC-LAC-SDT-000249) is expressly a summary of the underlying record, not the record itself.

Second, LAC’s and OSP’s productions being separate custodial matters bears on who has to search, not on relevance. Items 6 and 7 as served reach threat assessments and investigation records “concerning” or “involving” Plaintiff without a date limitation; OSP’s own objection to those items is qualified only “to the extent” they go beyond matters relevant to the access restrictions — this is within that limit.

This remains a narrow request: (1) the complaint or referral that opened Trooper Anspaugh-Lubans’ assessment, and (2) the complete assessment record. Please confirm by August 17 whether OSP will produce these.